How much should you spend on ads per day? Updated SmartAds pricing guide 2025

Key factors that influence advertising costs

Before diving into the question “How much should you spend on advertising per day?”, it’s important to understand that an advertising daily budget is rarely fixed. In practice, advertising costs depend on multiple variables. Below are the key factors that directly impact overall ad spend:

1. Advertising platforms

Each platform operates with different pricing models and bidding mechanisms. For example:

• Facebook Ads: Highly flexible with relatively competitive costs, but performance depends heavily on audience targeting and creative quality. Facebook runs on an ad auction system, where ads compete based on bid price, ad quality, and Estimated Action Rate. Advertisers can optimize toward objectives such as CPC, CPM, CPA, or CPE, and the system automatically allocates delivery accordingly.

• Google Ads (Search & GDN): Typically more expensive, especially in highly competitive industries such as real estate, finance, and insurance. In return, Google Ads enables brands to reach users with clear search intent. Google uses Ad Rank, calculated based on maximum bid (Max CPC/CPM), Quality Score, and search context. Advertisers can choose between Manual Bidding and Smart Bidding strategies aligned with goals like CPC, CPA, CPM, or ROAS.

• TikTok Ads: A fast-growing platform with generally lower CPMs, making it suitable for brand awareness among younger audiences. TikTok applies real-time auctions where ads compete based on bid price, predicted engagement rate, and creative quality. Common buying options include CPC, CPM, CPV, and oCPM (conversion optimization).

• Online Newspaper Advertising: Usually comes with higher costs but offers strong credibility and brand trust thanks to official media positioning. Most publishers use fixed-rate pricing (fixed CPM or CPC) based on placement and booking duration (CPD). However, several large publishers have begun adopting programmatic bidding to optimize ad delivery efficiency.

Therefore, businesses need to understand bidding algorithms and select the most suitable advertising platform based on campaign objectives in order to optimize marketing and advertising budgets effectively.

>>> Optimizing Ad Quality Score and CTR is the foundation for reducing advertising costs. Have you mastered it yet?

2. Content quality and ad formats

An advertising campaign should not only aim for visibility, but also deliver a positive user experience . One of the most critical contributors to this experience is the quality of content and ad formats, specifically:

• Engaging ad content with creative visuals or videos attracts more viewers and helps reduce average advertising costs.

• Video formats enable more vivid storytelling, increasing brand recall and emotional engagement, while static images are effective for quick impressions, easy sharing, and lower production costs.

Additionally, landing page experience plays a crucial role. A well-optimized destination page with fast loading speed, clear messaging, and intuitive structure can significantly improve conversion rates and reduce overall advertising spend.

3. Target audience and industry competition

This is one of the most decisive factors that directly influences how much budget is required for advertising.

• Target Audience: Demographics such as age, location, gender, behaviors, and interests have a substantial impact on bidding prices. The more granular the targeting, the higher the cost may be due to limited reach and intensified competition.

• Industry and Product: Highly competitive industries like real estate, insurance, education, and finance often come with higher advertising costs. These sectors typically target premium customer segments with limited audience pools. High order values combined with intense competition drive up the cost of reaching the right users. In contrast, niche industries with lower competition usually enjoy lower bids and easier optimization.

By clearly understanding buyer personas, target audiences, and industry competition levels, businesses can allocate budgets more strategically and avoid costly bidding wars.

>>> How can you build an effective buyer persona? Explore now.

In addition, advertising costs can fluctuate depending on timing, including:

• Before major holidays (Lunar New Year, International Women’s Day, Black Friday, etc.): costs may double due to intense competition.

• Beginning and end of the month: many businesses increase budgets to meet KPIs, driving costs higher.

• Prime hours (8:00 PM – 10:00 PM): higher online traffic typically leads to higher ad prices.

So, How Much Should You Spend on Advertising Per Day on Average?

Determining the right daily advertising budget is a common concern for businesses starting out. In reality, the answer depends heavily on the platform, industry, and ad format. Below are practical budget benchmarks by platform:

• Facebook Ads: To allow the algorithm to optimize effectively, campaigns typically need around 50 conversions per week. When budgets are too low (< 100,000 VND/day), Facebook lacks sufficient data for optimization. As a result, testing usually starts from 500,000 VND/day or higher, depending on product value and industry. Once campaigns stabilize, businesses can scale ad spend to generate more qualified leads.

• Google Ads: Entry-level budgets range from approximately 160,000 VND to several million VND per day (160,000 VND is Google’s minimum recorded spend in 2025). Highly competitive industries such as real estate and finance may require 5–20 million VND/day. During peak periods, CPC can reach 100,000–200,000 VND per click, meaning 10–20 million VND/day may be needed to drive around 100 visits to a landing page.

• TikTok Ads: According to multiple Vietnam advertising market reports, TikTok Ads typically have a minimum daily budget of around 200,000 VND for small campaigns or product testing. This threshold may vary depending on campaign objectives, ad formats, account type, and geographic targeting. Larger-scale or conversion-focused campaigns usually require higher budgets.

• Online Newspaper Advertising: Based on market surveys, display banner pricing is commonly calculated using CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), with wide-ranging rates depending on publisher credibility, traffic volume, placement, and banner size—ranging from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand VND per CPM. Some publishers require a minimum CPD booking budget of around 100 million VND for one week for premium placements.

With SmartAds, the platform currently offers online newspaper advertising through two main formats: Native Ads and Display Ads (video and banner). Advertising costs are flexibly calculated based on CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) or CPC (Cost Per Click). The latest 2025 pricing (VAT included) is as follows:

• All Websites: CPC from 3,300 VND, Viewable CPM from 20,000 VND

• Premium Publishers (VnExpress, Dan Tri, Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre...): CPC from 5,500 VND, Viewable CPM from 25,000 VND

• VnExpress Sites (VnExpress.net & Ngoisao.VnExpress.net): CPC from 6,600 VND (effective from 03/07/2025), Viewable CPM from 30,000 VND

• eVnExpress (English version): CPC from 5,500 VND, Viewable CPM from 30,000 VND

• Overseas FO Sites (International Websites): CPC from 3,300 VND, Viewable CPM from 20,000 VND

As a result, daily advertising costs on SmartAds can range from a few hundred thousand VND for market testing to tens of millions of VND per day, depending on campaign scale—such as targeting premium publishers (VnExpress, Dan Tri, Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre, etc.), exclusive placements, or industry-specific contextual targeting.

How to Determine the Right Advertising Budget for Your Business

Overall, determining how much to spend on advertising per day should never be arbitrary. Instead, businesses should rely on marketing objectives and real performance data. A practical approach includes the following steps:

• Define marketing objectives: If the goal is brand awareness, allocate budget based on CPM. If the goal is traffic generation or lead acquisition, CPC or CPA-based budgeting is more appropriate.

• Start small, then scale gradually: Begin with a minimum of 500,000 VND/day to generate enough data for machine learning optimization. When performance is stable, increase budgets by 20–30% every few days to maintain efficiency.

• Estimate based on buying models: Use average CPC, CPM, CPA, or CTR benchmarks to forecast the required budget for desired outcomes.

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• Measure ROI/ROAS: After running ads, compare ad spend with generated revenue. A high-performing campaign typically achieves ROAS > 300%, meaning every 1 unit of currency spent returns at least 3 units in revenue.

Conclusion

There is no single fixed answer to the question “How much should you spend on advertising per day?”. Depending on the platform, campaign objectives, and industry competition, daily budgets can range from a few hundred thousand to tens of millions of VND. Businesses can combine multiple channels—from social media advertising to online newspaper ads—to optimize costs while strengthening brand credibility. If you’re just getting started, begin with a small budget to test, closely monitor performance metrics, and adjust gradually.